McColl Bags Second Ascent of Dreamcatcher (5.14d)

9/24/09 - Canadian Sean McColl has redpointed the second ascent of one of Canada’s hardest rock climbs: Dreamcatcher (5.14d), established in 2005 by Chris Sharma. The sport route on a huge boulder in Squamish, British Columbia, has so far resisted the efforts of great climbers like Sonnie Trotter and Paul Robinson; it climbs a steep slab to a rightward tending rail of slopers on a severely overhanging wall, followed by a line of piton scars up a seam. McColl first worked on the route one year after Sharma’s ascent and returned to it this fall, after returning from the World Cup competition circuit in Europe. In all, he put in about eight days of work into the climb.

This is the hardest redpoint yet for McColl, who is better known as a competition climber. The 22-year-old is ranked fifth in the world in competition sport climbing and sixth in bouldering.See McColl’s blog for his own account of Dreamcatcher.